Contents

Announcement

In his announcement Bush stated that the council "will comprise members of the private sector from each country and will provide us recommendations on North American competitiveness, including, among others, areas such as automotive and transportation, steel, manufacturing, and services. The Council will meet annually with security and prosperity Ministers and will engage with senior government officials on an ongoing basis."[1]

"We are convinced that regulatory cooperation advances the productivity and competitiveness of our nations and helps to protect our health, safety and environment. For instance, cooperation on food safety will help protect the public while at the same time facilitate the flow of goods. We affirm our commitment to strengthen regulatory cooperation in this and other key sectors and to have our central regulatory agencies complete a trilateral regulatory cooperation framework by 2007," the announcement stated.[1]

The Council "will include 30 representatives: five from each government, and a like number of businesspersons from the three countries," according to Eduardo Sojo, the Public Policy Coordinator of the Office of the President of Mexico, Vicente Fox. "The decision to create the Council is a result of the region’s private sector making requests to do so, since over the 12-year life of the NAFTA nothing similar has ever been established. The idea is to address competitiveness as a regional issue, not one of each nation," Ivette Saldaña reported April 17, 2006, for Mexidata.info.